These Cuban researchers fight lung cancer without prejudice to their country’s economic standing since it had fairly no access to most Western technologies since it was placed on a trading lockdown from the US and decided to develop their own.
Cuban researchers fight lung cancer by focusing on prevention
Despite the lack of access to modern technologies, the Cuban government under the leadership of former leader Fidel Castro, did not rely on foreign knowledge to help them and went on to successfully develop a potent vaccine for lung cancer.
In a report released recently by the World Health Organization, Cuba’s state-run health system is so effective that the United States spends five times more per person in terms of healthcare, yet Cuban have slightly longer average lifespan compared to Americans.
One primary reason for this is that Cuba focuses on prevention rather than cure or remedies and vaccination for all Cubans is free.
Focus on leading killer disease
With most Cubans relatively living on a staple of tobacco, it could not be denied that lung cancer has been the known as the third leading cause of deaths by cancer and Cubans admit that.
Dr. Camilo Rodriguez, one of the lead researchers for the state-run Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM), the leading hub for biotechnology research says that Cuba produces no less than 70% of medicines that circulate in the country and produce their own vaccines for no less than 21 different diseases, including several types of cancer and debilitating diseases.
But one particular vaccine has caught the attention of the Western world and this is the lunch cancer vaccine that was developed at the CIM.
Breakthrough in lung cancer prevention
They call it CIMAvax and may not be just a vaccine that wards off cancer cells in the lungs, rather it inhibits the growth of diagnosed tumors and could even be dubbed as a therapeutic vaccine that treats lung cancer.
CIMAvax functions more like immunotherapy as it takes advantage of the body’s immune system to fight cancer.
Other countries like Japan and several in Europe are participating in clinical trials for CIMAvax and the US has also expressed its interests to take part as well. The Food and Drug Administration is hopeful that the US participation could start by this year.
The American Cancer Society attributes smoking as the leading cause of lung cancer, where it accounted for 80% of the deaths as a result of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.
Image Credit: Researcher Dr. Camilo Rodriguez – CNN
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